I read the two post-Endgame novels

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So, I read the Voyager continuation books "Homecoming" and "The Farther Shore". I had been dying to know what happens after Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant, but I'd never seen the books in the store. I ended up getting them off Amazon, relieving someone else of their dusty old copies.

All in all the two books were pretty good (they together constitute one story). As you may know from reading the information on Amazon or other places, the crew return to Earth to find a Borg virus and a Holocharacter rebellion, and both are blamed on Voyager. Some of the characters have individual pursuits while others work together.

Warning! Spoilers follow!

First of all, the story starts with a disturbing child-abuse scenario, and hints of this side plot continue through the first book. The victim is not identified until the middle of the second book, and though it does help to establish the climax of the story, it seemed a little excessive. AFAIK that's one thing that hasn't really been explored much in Star Trek: this would not have landed a PG rating as a movie.

Torres' plot was a little too Klingon, her going to a sacred Klingon world and going on a dangerous kind of vision quest, abandoning her child and Paris to find her mother. This plot wraps up the events in the Barge of the Dead episode, but seemed a little out of character.

I read the Doctor as just about spot-on. Another "holo-revolutionary" introduced is much more extreme in pursuing holographic rights, and some of the things he does are pretty disturbing as well. I was disapppointed that nothing ever became of him by the end, or someone he converted to his way of thinking. He just sort of seemed to fade out.

Then there was Kim. We find out that his girlfriend (the one he'd been holding out for) is still single, but a spy for Starfleet Intelligence. Unfortunately, by the end of the stories, they haven't talked to each other, he still doesn't know who she really is, and I held that against the story a little.

Like a couple of the movies, we have a corrupt Admiral, but he's not as corrupt as the others - and he may be just misguided more so than genuinely malacious.

The way Starfleet treats Seven, Icheb (who has more of a part than he really deserves, I thought), and the Doctor made me feel that maybe Starfleet isn't as "good" as we're led to believe. And maybe that's the author's purpose, to show that Starfleet has faults and isn't perfect. But I wasn't a big fan of theirs in this book, and that was somewhat uncomfortable for a Trekkie.

Spoilers end here.

All in all, I would recommend the book for Voyager fans, possibly for Trek fans in general who would like better closure to the series. And I think this story would make a better "Trek 11" than this prequel garbage I'm hearing about. The only roadblock would be establishing the end of Voyager or a summary of Voyager being lost in the Delta Quadrant - and Paramount settling for a PG-13 rating.

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I read "Homecoming" and "The Farther Shore" when they were published some years ago but I must admit that they gave me mixed emotions.

Let's take the good things first: The books are very well-written. Christie Golden is an excellent author and she clearly have an affection and understanding for the Voyager characters.

It was nice to read about how the old favorites finally arrived home and were received. There were also some things in the story that could develop into some interesting future plots, like Montgomery's scemes.

That was the good side, now here comes the bad side:

Kes is missing! There! I've said it! I don't think that I will ever appreciate or like a Voyager book where The Golden Lady Of Voyager isn't present.

The Borg plague was utterly silly. It reminded me of a Monty Python sketch.

I do hope that this Phytonesque attempt to conquer the Earth will be the last we will see of The Borg, at least for the coming ten years. They were great back in the early TNG days but now they are only silly.

But my main impression of "Homecoming" and "The Farther Shore" are more like.......well, this is going to be one of my usual parables but this will explain my feelings about "Homecoming", "The Farther Shore" and the Relaunch:

A relative of mine is an ardent fan of a certain rock band which had some international success in the end of the 60:s and beginning of the 70:s. My relative is a collector of things related to the band, albums, bootlegs from different concerts, videos, posters, books. But he steadily refuses to buy any of the solo albums the leading band members have done in recent years because he finds their current music lightweighted, adapted and too far away from the magic that the band members created together back in the good, old days. The magic isn't there anymore.

I get a similar feeling when I read "Homecoming" and "The Farther Shore" . As I've said before, they are well-written and there will probably be some interesting things in future Voyager stories but it will never be the same as when they were together in the Delta Quadrant, alone, facing unknown dangers and wonder if they ever would return to Earth. The magic just isn't there anymore!

I do find it hard to see how it will be possible to come up with good stories about the crewmembers when Janeway has been promoted to a desk-clerk, when Paris and Torres have been ruined as great action characters by becoming "Married With Children", when Tuvok is a teacher, when The Doctor has been reduced to Barclay's house pet and when Kes and Neelix are missing. I'm afraid that the "relaunch" in the long run will be focused on one or two characters while the others will be shoved in the background.

I have all the Voyager seasons 1-3 on DVD, I have the episodes taped up to "Worst Case Scenario", I have all the books up to "Pathways" and I still get a kick from reading and watching some old episodes. I have re-read books like "The Black Shore", "Marooned" and "Caretaker" from time to time but I'm not sure if I will re-read "Homecoming" and "The Farther Shore" in the coming future.

I will stick around and read some of the upcoming books to see if the "relaunch" will turn into something better than expected but I'm afraid that I will continue to lose interest in the future events of my old favorites if not something happens that will give me the interest back again.

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Regarding the Borg after Endgame, I suspect the Collective didn't survive after Admiral Janeway infected them with a neurolytic pathogen, Voyager destroyed the hub, and we saw the main Borg infrastructure in that region explode. Wouldn't that result in a complete disconnect throughout the entire collective, causing everything to malfunction and self-destruct? Wouldn't that be the end of the Borg throughout the galaxy?

Prove me wrong--with a new series that shows the Borg still active.

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I do find it hard to see how it will be possible to come up with good stories about the crewmembers when Janeway has been promoted to a desk-clerk, when Paris and Torres have been ruined as great action characters by becoming "Married With Children", when Tuvok is a teacher, when The Doctor has been reduced to Barclay's house pet and when Kes and Neelix are missing. I'm afraid that the "relaunch" in the long run will be focused on one or two characters while the others will be shoved in the background.

I disagree. I read the books too and wasn't that crazy about them. As far as good stories go however from what I remember Janeway and Ruvok in essence become teachers while Icheb ends up being someone who from the looks of things will be on the bridge of a startship within ten years. I tyhink there a re platny of good stories to mine in there.

Also because Paris and Torres are married with a girl doesn't mean the end of action stories for them. I can imagint that there may not be a lot of Klingons happy with a human on one of their sacred planets.

Kes left the show on her own accord and Neelix presumeably can still be contacted by Seven or just about anyone else. (Hell he may decide to bring his new family through the nearest wormhole to us.)

I can think of a few plots with the Doctor, harry, and Tuvok to name a few. I think they'll be smart enough to understand tjhat with an ensamble cast of characters like this, you can't choose just one or two. IMHO

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Regarding the Borg after Endgame, I suspect the Collective didn't survive after Admiral Janeway infected them with a neurolytic pathogen, Voyager destroyed the hub, and we saw the main Borg infrastructure in that region explode. Wouldn't that result in a complete disconnect throughout the entire collective, causing everything to malfunction and self-destruct? Wouldn't that be the end of the Borg throughout the galaxy?

I haven't read any Star Trek books (other than tech manuals and analyses of the episodes) but I think the Borg do exist, although in diminished numbers. Here is why:

1) When Data put the Borg to sleep in "Best of Both Worlds" it was not all Borg, just that one cube. As we later learned the Queen was aboard and *should* have carried the "sleep" instruction to the entire collective but didn't.

2) When Hugh carried a sense of individuality back to the Borg in "I, Borg" that *should* have also been disseminated to the rest of the collective, but again it wasn't. It was only limited to that cube that Hugh had contact with.

The Borg apparently have the ability to isolate one cube from the rest of the Collective when it suits them. An individual Borg no, but a sub-unit like a Cube or a Hub yes. I think the neurolithic pathogen affected those Borg using that Hub but there were several more Hubs elsewhere in the galaxy that would be unaffected.

Was the Queen affected? Sure. But given that there have been at least 3 queens that have been destroyed (although the Queen from Best of Both Worlds was never shown) and were replaced rather quickly (the Alice Kurge Queen we have seen twice) there could be more than one Queen in existence at a time.

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I do find it hard to see how it will be possible to come up with good stories about the crewmembers when Janeway has been promoted to a desk-clerk, when Paris and Torres have been ruined as great action characters by becoming "Married With Children", when Tuvok is a teacher, when The Doctor has been reduced to Barclay's house pet and when Kes and Neelix are missing. I'm afraid that the "relaunch" in the long run will be focused on one or two characters while the others will be shoved in the background.

I disagree. I read the books too and wasn't that crazy about them. As far as good stories go however from what I remember Janeway and Ruvok in essence become teachers while Icheb ends up being someone who from the looks of things will be on the bridge of a startship within ten years. I tyhink there a re platny of good stories to mine in there.

Also because Paris and Torres are married with a girl doesn't mean the end of action stories for them. I can imagint that there may not be a lot of Klingons happy with a human on one of their sacred planets.

Kes left the show on her own accord and Neelix presumeably can still be contacted by Seven or just about anyone else. (Hell he may decide to bring his new family through the nearest wormhole to us.)

I can think of a few plots with the Doctor, harry, and Tuvok to name a few. I think they'll be smart enough to understand tjhat with an ensamble cast of characters like this, you can't choose just one or two. IMHO

"Kes left the show on her own account". Not entirely true. She was kicked out from the show in one badly written story and was humiliated and destroyed as a character in an even worse story, made up only to insult the fans who wanted her back. I can't accept that. I find no reason to support the relaunch unless they bring back Kes in an acceptable way.

As for Neelix, it's almost the same. He should be brought back too. But at least he wasn't humiliated and destroyed like Kes.

Paris and Torres will never be as good as they were in the early days of Voyager. I don't think it's possible to come up with good stories about them any more. What shall they do? Squabbling on the bridge about who will be babysitting this particular day?

The only main characters they can come up with stories about are Chakotay and Kim because they are still on the ship.

If they want a real relaunch, then they must find a way to bring back the main characters on the ship again, like they did in the TOS movies.